Bombs will deepen Iraq's nightmare
By Haifa Zangana, The Guardian, September 17, 2002
This war plan forces me to stand by the dictator who tortured me: I am an Iraqi British woman (half-Kurdish, half-Arab). I have lived in Britain since 1976. I can't go back to Iraq because, like many Iraqis, I was imprisoned and tortured. When I was released I was haunted by human howls of pain and memories of the dead. Once in London, I could hardly believe I was safe in a democratic country. The day that I first exercised my right to vote was one of the happiest of my life. On election day 1979, I was up at 5am. I was the first to vote that day. I voted Labour. The Conservatives won.

President Bush wants war, not justice - and he'll soon find another excuse for it
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, September 18, 2002
You've got to hand it to Saddam. In one brisk, neat letter to Kofi Annan, he pulled the rug from right under George Bush's feet. There was the American president last week, playing the role of multilateralist, warning the world that Iraq had one last chance – through the UN – to avoid Armageddon. "If the Iraqi regime wishes peace," he told us all in the General Assembly, "it will immediately and unconditionally forswear, disclose and remove or destroy all weapons of mass destruction, long-range missiles and all related material." And that, of course, is the point. Saddam would do everything he could to avoid war. President Bush was doing everything he could to avoid peace. And now the Iraqi regime has put the Americans into a corner. The arms inspectors are welcome back in Iraq. No conditions. Just as the Americans asked.

Taking a Look Back at Sabra and Shatila; An Interview With Ellen Siegel
By Sherri Muzher, Palestine Chronicle, September 15, 2002
(PC)- In 2001, I conducted interviews with several Jewish peace activists regarding the current Palestinian Intifada for freedom. Among them was registered nurse Ellen Siegel. Ellen, who worked at Gaza Hospital [Lebanon] during the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, reflected on what she saw during those dark days. And as we approach the 20th anniversary of the massacre, I would like to share her thoughts.

Let Us Not Forget Those Massacred on 16/9: In Memory of Sabra and Shatila Carnage
Editorial, Palestine Chronicle, September 16, 2002
RAMALLAH (PMC) - 16/9 is another anniversary that the world should, but does not, commemorate as it has the tragedy of September 11th that hit Americans deep in the heart of the Big Apple and shook the globe with it: On 16 September 1982, under the then Israeli 'defense' Minister, Ariel Sharon's command, Israeli forces occupying Beirut, sealed off the poverty-stricken Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, homes to thousands of Palestinians refugees, and, under their watchful eye, permitted members of the Israeli-allied Lebanese Christian phalange militia to slaughter children, women and men, whose only sin was that they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

A semantic game
Al-Ahram Weekly, September 12 - 18, 2002
Scott Ritter, the UN arms inspector who resigned in 1998 in protest at US manipulation of the UNSCOM mandate was in Baghdad this week to deliver a message to the Iraqis: allow the inspectors back or risk the destruction of Iraq. Al-Ahram Weekly interviewed him in Baghdad.

Like the old days in South Africa
By Gideon Levy, Ha'aretz article reprinted in New Profile, Thursday, May 24, 2001
A tour of Hebron with Raymond Louw, former editor of the Rand Daily Mail, the newspaper that was at the forefront of the struggle against apartheid: I went to Hebron with Raymond Louw. For 11 years, Louw was the editor-in-chief of the Rand Daily Mail, the Johannesburg newspaper that resolutely fought apartheid during its darkest period. A youthful 74, Louw, who has earned the nickname "Mr. Press Freedom," travels all over the world. Last week, he was in Israel.We thought about visiting Hebron because we thought about apartheid. No other place in the occupied territories can better illustrate the brutal essence of the Israeli occupation and the local version of apartheid. In Hebron, a tiny minority of about 400 people cruelly controls a huge majority of 140,000 residents, about 30,000 of whom live under direct Israeli military rule; tens of thousands of Palestinians are subjected to curfews and closures due to a holiday or demonstration or any other whim of the Jewish minority; there are roads for Jews only; stores are burned down and market stalls are overturned; acts of violence occur almost daily; the security forces stationed there do not lift a finger when the violence is perpetrated by the ruling minority, but respond severely when the violence comes from the subjugated majority. A guerrilla war is being waged by the occupied against the occupier; between the two peoples - not to say the two races - surges a deep and violent hatred commingled with fear.

Fighters' Talk
By Ran HaCohen, Antiwar, September 16, 2002
I went to an evening organised by the Israeli soldiers who refuse to serve in the occupied territories. It was called "Fighters’ Talk", referring to the title of a well-known book from just after the 1967 war, which exposed the first ideological cracks – hesitations, questions, criticism – of soldiers who had occupied the territories in the six days of that war. The speakers as well as the audience were varied: refusers, serving soldiers, supporters and opponents, hesitators. One of the participants in the old Fighters’ Talk was on the stage too. Comparing the two occasions, he said things were much simpler in the old days. "We were fighting against regular armies – of Jordan, Egypt, Syria – and not against civilians. The Palestinians were there, the war was in their territories, but they were not fighters, not terrorists, not the enemy. Whether we believed holding the territories was desirable or not, none of us thought we should settle them." Compare this to the present reality, where a quarter of a million Israeli settlers live on Palestinian soil, taking Palestinian land, water, freedom. Where an army is fighting a civilian population with no state, no defence, no rights, no dignity.

An Open Letter to the American People on War with Iraq
by Robin Miller, Dissident Voice, September 15, 2002
War feels close today. An American president again is poised to destroy a small foreign nation. Only the American people can stop him. And stop him we must, for the world's sake, and for ours. Please abandon the conceit that "our" killings are always "war," while "their" killings are always terrorism. Jettison, too, its corollary, that "our" deaths are an affront to humanity, while "theirs" are simply unfortunate accidents. These conceits distill American exceptionalism--the widespread belief that we are better than others, and that America is not subject to customary international rules--to its bitter, racist essence. We are all God's children--Americans and Iraqis, Palestinians and Jews--created in God's image, of infinite worth. Realize the limitless hypocrisy of our government's position. The one nation that has killed with nuclear weapons intends to devastate an already-impoverished country because it might, someday in the future, do something harmful. This is assuredly a prescription for endless war. If America may assault another nation because of what it might do in the future, so may every other country attack its potential enemies.

Saddam's concessions will never be enough for the US
By Simon Tisdall, The Guardian, September 18, 2002
Unless it can engineer a war, Bush's administration is political roadkill: To the "man in the street", on whose support Tony Blair and George Bush ultimately depend, it looks like a fair enough offer. For months the US has been huffing and puffing, mouthing and mithering, making waves over Iraq, demanding that it do what Washington wants. Now, finally, it has received a simple answer: yes. So what does the US do? Ask for more.
It is worth recalling how this pseudo-epiphany was reached. The build-up began in earnest with Bush's "axis of evil" speech in January; then came his doctrine of "pre-emptive attack" (what security adviser Condoleezza Rice sweetly calls "anticipatory defence"). Then a startled world learned that "rogue states" holding weapons of mass destruction were more or less on the team with Osama and al-Qaida. That, it transpired, made them legitimate targets for America's "war on terror" and "regime change".